Lioness's Den
by KrisEleven
Summary: Written for the April-May Challenge on TPE: Writing Challenges forum. Neal just knows something strange is going on at Pirate's Swoop, and he has never been able to let a mystery go once he got his teeth in it.
1. Horse

A/N This was written for the April/May Challenge over at the Tamora Pierce Experiment: Writing Challenges forum. There's a new challenge every month, so head over and check it out! The link can be found on my profile. Thanks to Sweet Sassy Sarah for beta'ing!

* * *

The forest was thick on either side of the road they travelled and the sounds of the wildlife seemed vibrant enough to nearly drown out the lecture the Lady Alanna was giving her almost-new squire.

Neal looked at his horse's neck, biting his lip against the remark which threatened to work its way past his resistance. As he worked to keep his traitor tongue from leading him to evisceration at the hands of his oh-so-merciful knight-mistress, Neal's thoughts returned (yet again) to Kel.

Despite his young friend being uncharacteristically delighted (at least uncharacteristically open about said delight) over her own knight-master, Neal couldn't push away the guilt of being the Lioness's squire while she, instead, was not.

On top of that, over the two months of riding with the Lioness's foul temper as company, Neal had slowly come to the decision that he had been a poor replacement for Kel for the Lioness. She hardly spoke to him in the mornings except to bark orders. While on the road they spoke of his university education, his weaknesses in page training, his experiences and strengths and nothing else (Neal had given up trying to fill the silence with rambling observances within the first hour. Even the silences that had him twitching were better than the annoyed looks and snapped answers she had replied with). In the evenings, they sparred until Neal was a mass of bruises, ate a quick soldier's dinner of grains or dried soup, studied healing (mostly healing his bruises of earlier) until he was sure his brain was leaking from his ears, and only then was he allowed to fall, exhausted, onto his bedroll.

Bandits be damned. The Lioness was going to kill him.

Between the brain-leaking and bruise-nursing and all the silence, Neal had come to the understanding that, though she would do her duty by him, Alanna of Olau and Pirate's Swoop had no desire to have Nealan of Queenscove as her squire.

So the silences stretched on as the two of them rode down the eastern coast towards Pirate's Swoop.


	2. Injury

Neal had been to Pirates Swoop before, on a visit with his father before he went to the university. Unlike other places when seen with an older eye, the Lioness's home had lost none of its size or grandeur. Neal restrained himself from gaping as they rode up together to its walls. A flag was hoisted— a gold lioness on red— flying alone over the castle walls. Alanna sighed as she studied the flag.

She was home, but Neal felt no relief of his own. He knew his trials were just beginning.

* * *

"Don't drop your point! I'll slip right above that sword and catch you in the throat or chest or face if you're not defending them, Squire!"

"Yes, Lady Alanna." Neal gasped his answer, falling back from their third round of swordplay. His shoulder, thigh and one side were sharp pains from where her practice sword had made contact while his arms and legs ached from the physical strain of spending the past three hours trying to stay away from the maniac he was supposed to be learning from. His whole body felt drenched with sweat and he was gasping for breath.

Alanna, a light sheen of sweat on her forehead and her breath only slightly heavy, looked up at the sun. "Time to quit for the day," she said. "Put away all your equipment and clean up. You can get dinner from the kitchen and then you'll be working on those problems I assigned you. We're not going to waste what might be your only chance in a long while to have the use of a library. I'll expect you to go over all the answers tomorrow at dawn when we ride down to the village to heal the winter colds." Neal stared after her as she walked towards the Swoop, sword in hand. "And don't forget to look after your horses before you go to eat!"

"She's going to kill me," Neal said to himself. He watched as she stopped and talked with one of her guards. She was looking out over the courtyard towards the main gates while the man spoke to her. "She's actually trying to kill me..." Neal, feeling very sorry for himself, turned and started towards the stables where his horse was being kept.

* * *

A horse neighed and Neal woke up with a start. He lifted his face from the book's pages, leaning back in his chair as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He had groomed and fed his own horse that afternoon before quickly bathing and eating and running to the Swoop's library. The Lioness's 'problems' were long, complicated questions on healing theory that took Neal the better part of the evening and, after a long day of magical and physical exertion, had put him right to sleep. Looking around the library in the dark, Neal confirmed that it was, in fact, horse-free. He had probably been dreaming about that monster Peachblossom….

The moon was shining into the library from the windows, giving him enough light to find the flint and his lamp and light his way; his magic was too worn out to do anything, even something as small as a mage-light. Grabbing the book that had served as his pillow, Neal gathered up his materials before hearing another neigh. This time he was awake enough to realize that the sound was coming in through the window. But who was out in the courtyard of Pirate's Swoop at this hour?

Hiding the light from the lamp, he opened the window silently, squinting out over the dark grounds. Two horses stood in the courtyard. The moon was bright, but not bright enough for him to make out who it was arriving at his knight-mistress's home.

_Hopefully it's a messenger come to call on the Lioness and I for some action_, Neal thought. Anything to stop the exhaustive magical training. But there was no welcome for the guests, no activity of any kind save one of the riders dismounting and moving over to the other horse, looking up at his companion. _Something is not right_, Neal realized. He was thinking of raising an alarm when a ray of light fell across the two horses and their riders.

The Lioness walked into the courtyard and Neal shrank back into the darkness of the library involuntarily at the look on her face, illuminated by the lamp she held in front of her. She was not annoyed, nor angry, nor furious— all expressions which Neal had become familiar with on the trip from Corus to Pirate's Swoop.

The Lioness was livid.

"What were you _thinking_?" she asked the horseman, her voice carrying across the yard to where Neal stood.

"Lass, don't overreact," the dark shape said and Neal finally recognized the baron's voice. He moved away from Neal's hiding place, towards his wife.

"'_Don't overreact?_'! You are telling me not to _overreact _when you disappear for _days_ with—"

The baron spoke too quietly for Neal to overhear, but was quickly cut off by Alanna.

"Don't, 'my dear' me, George Cooper—" There was a small sound from the other rider and Alanna looked at them sharply. "What happened?"

The Baron spoke softly again, and Neal leaned out of the window a little to listen. He hit the shutter which banged against the wall. The Lioness and her husband both looked in his direction as Neal ducked out of the way. He sat silently on the library floor, his breath held.

"—squire must have left it opened… nothing, George."

"… inside…"

"I'll get the horses…you...her."

Neal peeked over the sill in time to watch Alanna lead the horses to the stable. The baron walked towards the front door, a bundle cradled in his arms. He turned once as he reached the doors— looking sharply towards the library before he disappeared into his home.

Neal closed the shutter, making sure it didn't make a noise as he quickly gathered his pile of work and hurried to his room. There were things that were not as they appeared at Pirate's Swoop.

* * *

The next morning Neal was introduced to Alanna's husband. He looked for some hint of deception in the smiling face of the baron but was unsuccessful. George Cooper wished Neal luck on dealing with his wife, smiled at Alanna's glare, and disappeared after breakfast.

"Come along, squire," Alanna snarled. "We'll work on fevers this morning and this afternoon we'll improve your swordplay. Hurry up!"

Neal hid his sigh very well and hurried from the room. He cursed the baron as he went to his chambers to collect his notebook. Whatever Alanna's husband had been up to last night had the Lioness very angry and although the baron seemed able to ignore his wife's worst moods, Neal was positive that he wouldn't be so lucky.

* * *

Neal was trying to get to his room while moving as little as possible. He had found, however, that walking took a lot of movement. Every muscle had been worked at one point while he was under the care of the Stump but Alanna seemed to have done the same amount of work in one afternoon in the courtyard. He had been exhausted by the time lunch had been announced, but had been allowed only a half hour to eat before they were back outside, the Lioness growling directions while he forced his body to keep up with the drills.

He was concentrating solely on the stair directly in front of him until he saw the slippered feet standing on the top step. His eyes travelled up the dress until he found he was looking at the bemused face of a reddish-blonde girl. She had a wide mouth, which smirked a little to the side as she looked the squire over. Her green eyes sparkled under her light eyebrows. Her left arm was injured and held in a sling.

"Looks like you are having plenty of fun with my mother," she said, her smirk becoming more pronounced.

Neal grimaced at the girl. Later he would cite his exhaustion and the ruthless and very un-mothering attitude of the Lioness that day in order to explain his confusion at that statement. Neal looked into the face of the girl at the top of the stairs a full minute before he grunted, "Who?"

The girl blinked. "She didn't get the smartest squire of the bunch, did she?"

With that, she turned and walked away and the first meeting between Nealan of Queenscove and Alianne of Pirate's Swoop was over.

Neal hurried up to his room, the meeting forgotten as he tried to force unwilling limbs out of and back into his changes of clothes. Getting down the stairs was another challenge, his legs already stiffening from their workout, but he finally managed to hobble into the dining room where Alanna and her husband already sat waiting. He sat silently, listening to their conversation as he poked at his food.

The door behind him opened and he turned to see the girl he had met in the stairway. Looking at her with a fresher mind, he recognized the daughter of Pirate's Swoop: eleven year old Alianne. The daughter of the Lioness who didn't want to be a knight.

"You're late," Alanna said sharply.

"I was doing something for Da," the girl answered, turning her scowl from Neal to her mother as she walked around the table. A servant came forward and helped her pull out the heavy chair beside the Baron, since her left arm was useless at the moment.

"Sorry, Lass," the Baron said to his wife as Alianne took her seat. "I didn't realize you were waiting for her." Alanna shook her head. Neal looked across the table and to his right, at the identically stubborn set of their jaws.

"Aly," George said into the silence. "This is Nealan of Queenscove, your mother's new squire."

"Perfect," Aly muttered into her plate, her tone making it clear that she thought it was anything but. Alanna's head snapped up and she opened her mouth angrily, but shut it again at a look from her husband. She contented herself with violently buttering a piece of bread. The Baron spoke into his daughter's ear in a tone too quiet for Neal to catch, even if he had cared.

_Perfect_, Neal echoed, looking at his plate. _Right in the middle of family drama, and I'm sure _I'm _the one the Lioness will take it all out on. Perfect._


	3. Candle

Neal rounded the corner and stopped abruptly as he looked at the Lioness's daughter, curled up in the corridor's windowsill reading a book that looked much too advanced for her. It had been a week since he had last seen her at dinner and she had avoided him studiously. Trying to look as if he had just happened on that particular corridor, Neal set aside his sheath and stretched his arms casually, until he noticed what the girl was reading.

"Is that Salmalin's book on realm borders?" he asked incredulously, recognizing title.

"Of course," the girl responded, flipping a page coolly.

"There is no way you can get through that," Neal said, leaning against the cool stone. He rubbed his sore shoulders as he thought back to his lessons with the brilliant mage. He didn't notice Aly's posture stiffen with indignation. "_I_ could hardly get through it."

"I'm sure I'll manage," she responded coolly.

"Well, it's in my experience that you girls usually do," he said, rolling his shoulders as he thought back to his years as a squire and a page. "Kel always managed to pull off what the rest of us couldn't."

"Yes, Keladry of Mindalen is absolutely incredible," Aly said, her face seemingly innocent as she leaned over her book. Neal looked at her sharply.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked her.

"What do _you_ mean?" she replied, one eyebrow raised at her page. "You don't think she's incredible?"

"Don't play innocent with me, Little Aly."

"I'm not little," Aly denied, pursing her lips up at the Squire. "I'm eleven."

"Of course you are. A child," he replied distractedly, not seeing her glare. "Regardless, I am the master of sarcasm and I know it when I hear it."

"Well, oh Master of Sarcasm," she drawled as she marked her page and jumped from the windowsill. "I'll be sure to remember that, next time I need your expertise. Don't expect me to come running if I need a healer or knight though!"

"Why do I have to meet the most annoying girls in Tortall?" Neal muttered to himself darkly as he watched her stomp away down the corridor. "Even Kel wasn't this annoying when she was eleven…" He smirked at that— he really must be missing her to tell himself such a lie.

Now, though, it was time for his little mission. Neal told himself he wasn't sneaking. Really. Alanna _had_ told him he was a guest and, therefore, he _should_ be able to walk through the manor on his own. And, anyway, hadn't Alanna given him the day off to do what he wanted? And what he wanted to do was explore Pirate's Swoop. No question, then. He wasn't sneaking.

Neal, laying flat along the window sill in an out of the way corner of the servant's quarters snorted to himself and fought a sneeze as he caught a lungful of dust. His curiosity had finally gotten the best of him. He had a good view of the yard, stables and— most importantly— the window of the office where the baron had been barricaded for two days.

But he wasn't sneaking.

Two hours later, Neal was on his back on the ledge, blowing at specks of dust that floated in the late morning light above his head. At first, he had watched the Baron's window closely, noting every movement and questioning every action he saw. However, his tired and sore body could only take so much of one position and once he allowed himself to get distracted he found he couldn't really get into the mystery of the baron's activities.

_Plus,_ he admitted to himself. _It's not like the husband of the Lioness herself is going to be doing something illegal in their home. It's not like the husband of the Lioness would do anything illegal _at all, he corrected himself, but still... something wasn't right. He thought of the late-night arrivals, the Lioness's obvious anger, the messengers disguised as delivery folk he had happened to notice while in the stables, those odd strangers in the village... It had gotten him into trouble at the University, and ever more so under the Stump's watchful eye, but he Neal couldn't put aside a mystery once his attention had been drawn to it, no matter how much trouble he knew he'd get into for it later.

That he would get in trouble if the Lioness caught wind of what he was doing wasn't even a question.

_She'll probably spar with me for real if she finds out I'm spying on her husband_, Neal thought, yawning as he turned into a more comfortable position. _Only after she forces me to heal every sniffle in the village and... and recite the 400 laws of the healers in..._

* * *

There was the flutter of bats outside the window and Neal sat up, stifling a groan as stiff muscles complained about the uncomfortable position they had been forced into. Neal looked outside the window and cursed. The sun was already far below the walls that surrounded the Swoop and the sky was a dull red above the trees. He had fallen asleep before noon, but it was well into the evening now. An entire day wasted and Neal was all the more sore from his impromptu nap on the stone windowsill. Not to mention not being any closer to answering the mystery of the baron.

Bringing it to his mind, Neal turned to look across the courtyard and flattened himself out on the sill. The baron's office was lit from within from a candle on the desk and Neal watched as the baron turned away from the door. He shook his head as he spoke to someone who must have been standing on the other side of the desk. Aly backed into Neal's line of sight, her gaze fixed on whoever the baron was talking to as she got closer to the door. The door opened before she reached it and someone in a dark brown cloak slipped inside, closing the office door behind him. With his back to the door, the stranger took off his cloak's hood and smiled as he spoke to the baron, who had reached out and grabbed Aly by the arm.

Neal watched this all, curious but unconcerned. Who would the baron have in his office this late in the evening? Why did that man look familiar?

The man flicked his cloak back and Neal, suddenly, recognized him as one of the strange men he had seen who had seemed so out of place in the village. Then, the stranger had his sword out of its sheath and Neal gaped in shock as the stranger walked towards the baron and his daughter, blade in hand.


	4. Map

Neal's heart pounded as he ran through the dark hallways of the Swoop. He had had pulled his sword from its sheath and though he prayed that there would be no servant coming around a corner as he dashed headlong through the dark corridors with a naked blade in hand, he despaired as he reached the long hallway with the baron's office at the end of it without sign of another person. All Neal knew was that there were at least two attackers in the baron's office, against an unarmed man and an eleven year old girl and Neal had no _time _to go get his knight-mistress, but he wished he had met someone—anyone—that could have been sent running for her.

As he ran down the last stretch of hallway and the sound of a struggle became audible, two maids came out of one of the rooms, staring down the hallway away from him to the source of the sounds.

"Hey! Hey!" Neal shouted as he ran up behind them. One of the maids turned and dropped her basket. The other took one look at his sword and screamed. "Stop. Listen!" Neal shouted. "I need you to run and get the Lioness, okay? Run and tell her she needs to come up to the baron's office right away, all right?"

They nodded and ran past him, holding their skirts up to their knees. Neal didn't bother watching them round the corner.

_Please, don't be too late! _he thought. He put on an extra burst of speed and crashed through the door into the office.

He had no time, once he had run full-tilt into the room to stop and gawk at the chaos within. All he had time to notice was that there were five attackers, not the two he had been hoping for. Oh, and that both the baron and little Aly had knives in both hands and were holding off the four still standing. Then, Neal was noticed and he was defending himself, his point staying up as he blocked the stranger's thrust at his chest. He attacked, pushing the man further into the room before his sword connected with skin and his attacker went down.

Turning, he stared as Aly's knives flashed in the candlelight. The baron was holding off two of the attackers, his knives a blur, but it could only be a matter of time before the extra reach of the swords cut through their knives' defence.

Neal looked around the room frantically. He couldn't possibly get in the middle of the fights without being in danger of getting cut himself, but maybe... Running over to the desk, he jumped up onto its surface and grabbed the heavy cloth map of Tortall off the wall. Spinning, he threw it over Aly's head and watched as it tangled with her attacker. Aly turned and threw her knife, getting one of the men fighting with her father in the shoulder. He spun and fell to the ground.

Neal jumped off the desk and kicked the Tortall-designed attacker squarely in what appeared to be his head, praying to Mithros that the man's sword wouldn't cut through the cloth to cut into his leg as he did so. Luckily, the man fell to the ground, stunned or unconscious and still tangled in the map. Neal turned to see that the baron, too, had dealt with his opponent. The three of them, baron, his daughter and the squire, stood there staring at each other and breathing hard in the silence.

"Well," the baron finally said, looking around. "I suppose there's no chance of us hiding this from your mother."

Both Aly and Neal snorted as answer.

"Yes, I thought not." It seemed very funny for some reason, and Neal burst out laughing. He looked up once only to see that Aly was also laughing, her hands covering her mouth and when they met each other's eyes, they erupted into further peals of laughter.

"_What_ is my squire doing running through the hallways scaring the maids and why is everyone..." Alanna stopped as she walked into the room and scanned it, silently, from the doorway.

Neal couldn't help it. He snorted, loudly, into the silence. Aly didn't have to look at him to start laughing again.


	5. Key

The Lioness unlocked a small sitting room at the other end of the Swoop, giving orders to her guards while she pushed Neal and Aly inside. The baron followed behind them and got them to sit down. Opening a small bag, Alanna pulled out a round jar and knelt in front of Neal.

"Hold still, Squire." Neal held still as his knight-mistress smoothed a salve over his arm where one of the attacker's blades had actually managed to get through his defences, unnoticed in all the chaos.

"But how did you _know_?" Aly asked, again, and Neal stopped himself from giving her a glare. She had been asking, continually since the guards had been called and the strangers had been taken away. Neal was trying to get through the interrogation without openly admitting that he had been spying on the baron, while at the same time not lying outright, but she was making it very difficult.

_Correction,_ Neal thought as he looked up to see both the Lioness and her husband were waiting on his answer, _she had made it impossible. _

Taking a deep breath, Neal explained about the library, and all the curious people and events around the Swoop, and finally told them about his hiding spot on the window ledge and how he had fallen asleep watching the baron's window.

Aly raised one eyebrow and his knight-mistress just rolled her eyes as he finished the story. The baron gave him a considering look. "Oh, no you don't," Alanna said, glaring at her husband. "You're not stealing away my squire. I happen to be very fond of him, and I'm not going to get another with his talents. You find your own agents."

Neal looked between them, wide-eyed as the Baron laughed and answered his wife. The Lioness was _fond _of him? His _talents_?

Wait a moment... _agents_?

"You're the Whisper Man," Neal said. He stared at the baron open-mouthed before he realized it would have been a better idea to _not _voice that particular observation.

"Do you know how many have figured that out in the past ten years?" the baron asked. Neal shook his head. "None. Not one. And you spend a week and a half in the Swoop and you have me figured... I must be getting soft."

Neal shook his head. "I'm just curious," he said quickly, but the baron was laughing.

"No, my dear squire, what you are is _nosey. _And don't you giggle, my girl, because that just about sums you up as well." Aly just grinned at her mother.

"What happens now?" Neal asked. He was a little afraid that the answer would be death or imprisonment or exile or some such thing. What do they do with people who figure out who the secret spymaster of the realm really is?

"Oh, you're sworn to secrecy, I suppose," the baron said, seeming very unconcerned about it. "I'm not saying the people _don't _know; I'm just usually the one to tell them."

"People we trust know what George is up to, sooner or later. Mostly because he ends up pulling them into his shadow world," Alanna said. "It was just a matter of time before we actually told you. Now, George, we have some prisoners to deal with. You two sit here. I'll ask the kitchen to send up some food for you to eat before going to bed. Remember, after a healing—" She cut herself off at the looks they gave her. "Right. A healer and a healer's daughter hardly need the spiel. Eat it all and right to bed, though." She kissed the top of Aly's head and walked towards the door. "I'll see you in the courtyard at dawn, squire."

Neal groaned after the door was safely shut behind her. "Now she likes me and she's still going to kill me."

"She's always liked you," Aly said, leaning back into her chair. "Like she would have picked a squire if she didn't like him. Don't be stupid."

"I always thought it was just because I'm Kel's friend."

Aly rolled her eyes. "Well, my mother loves everything about Kel, but she's not _that_ smitten. She thinks you have a lot of potential, she said. She thinks you have good character and a lot of talent."

Neal tried to ignore the fact that the compliments, even second-hand, made him blush up to his ears. "You don't like Kel, do you?" he asked instead.

Aly shrugged, looking away. Neal thought he saw what was going on there, but decided not to push it. "So, your father is the realm's spymaster and you are suddenly a master with a blade? Is anyone here what they appear to be?"

Aly smiled at his praise. "My brothers are pretty normal. And Ma couldn't hide something if her life depended on the lie."

Neal shook his head. "So, Little Aly. You're not going to be a knight, even though you can fight better than most pages?"

"Nope. I'm going to be a spy."

Neal returned her grin. He didn't doubt it in the least.

* * *

The End.


End file.
